


I Know Nothing About War and Politics

by Nawyn



Category: Sea Hawk (1940)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Female Friendship, Maria just needs a nudge in the right direction to become a true badass, Pirates, Spies & Secret Agents, so I nudged her
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-25 21:36:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20378506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nawyn/pseuds/Nawyn
Summary: As England prepares for the Armada's attack, Doña Maria makes her own efforts to protect the people she's come to love.





	I Know Nothing About War and Politics

She is bent over her lute when he comes in. A smile lifts the corners of her mouth even as she leans closer to the music. New songs always come unsteadily to her fingers, but once she has them, they’re there forever. _This chord, then that,_ she thinks, trying to outpace the click of his boots on the floor, _then up the strings to–- _

A shadow swoops in to block the sunlight from her window. Geoffrey kisses her cheek, and laughs in her face when she looks up indignantly. “Forgive the distraction, sweetheart,” he says. “I’m a bit pressed for time.”

Her retort dies on her lips as she takes in the sturdy wool doublet, the hat, the boots she heard rather than softer court shoes. There is a chair opposite her, but he hasn’t taken it. “You’re not leaving now?” she asks, proud that her voice doesn’t waver.

“With tomorrow’s tide,” he says. “Howard and Drake want us at Plymouth with all speed.”

She puts her lute down with shaking hands. How is it possible to be so surprised by something she knew was coming? She wants to cling to him, to keep him so close that no danger can touch him again. But she has learned, these three years in England, the difference between a girl’s wishes and a woman’s decisions. She can shield him no more now than she ever could; he must want to be shielded first.

“Maria?” he asks, taking a step closer. His smile is wiped away as the old familiar nervous confusion washes over his face. “Are – are you well? You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I’ve heard most women worry when their lovers go to war.” She meant it to sound light enough to put him at ease, but her voice catches on the words. He steps around the chair and kneels down beside her. His hands are warm around hers; she fights the urge to grip so hard he’ll never pull free. “Oh, it sounds so foolish to say be careful, but you will, won’t you?” she asks, unable to help herself. “You won’t take too many risks?”

“None beyond sailing the _Albatross_ into the Armada’s teeth.” She can see the effort it costs him to keep that smile so easy. From somewhere she finds a smile of her own and offers it back to him. A fraction of the tension in his face smoothes out. “You’re thinking something you’re not telling me again,” he says.

Maria shakes her head. “I’m trying not to ask you to promise you’ll come back to me. It feels unfair to add that to your load.”

Oh, she could live in these three seconds forever: the widening of his eyes, the real smile replacing the forced one, the way his hands tighten around hers. The _here_ness of him; the safety of knowing herself loved. “I’ll promise that gladly,” he says. He kisses her hands, one after the other. “Will you think me an irredeemable heathen if I promise to pray to my lady of the roses every night?”

_Yes. Perhaps. Geoffrey, honestly._ But instead she says something she didn’t even know she had wanted to say: “Pray to anything you like, so long as you come home.”

This is not how she wanted to send him to war. She wanted to be noble and strong, to take the Queen for her model and give him words that would inspire him, and instead she sits here bleating whatever comes into her head like a lost sheep. But he leans forward – how is he still so shy, why doesn’t he know yet that she will never push him away? – and she can feel the pulse jumping in his wrist as she closes the final distance between them. So perhaps she hasn’t bungled this entirely.

He gets to his feet at last, a little unsteadily. He almost makes it to the door before she remembers. “Wait!” she cries, bolting for the corner where Martha keeps her things. It came only a few days ago; she takes a moment to bless the timing.

Behind her, he laughs when he sees the box she’s rummaging in. “Darling, I thought I’d been quite clearly warned off your jewels.”

_There._ Her hand closes on the little box she wants. She whirls around with the first real smile of the day. “And so you had,” she agrees. “But accepting a gift hardly makes you a pirate.”

His face transforms again as he opens the box and registers what’s inside. “I had the Queen’s own jeweler make it,” she says. “Do you remember when we talked in the rose garden, what I – oh!” Evidently he does remember; he’s seized her hand and pulled her to him, kissing her with a fervor that startles her, even from him. “Geoffrey, really, it’s just a pin,” she says, breathless, when he finally lets her go.

“It’s more than that,” he says. “Or you wouldn’t have remembered.”

She takes it from the box and pins it to his doublet. An English rose made of pale pink diamonds twines glittering on his chest with a sapphire-blue Spanish iris. “Wear it sometimes, and think of me.”

“Wear it?” he echoes. “Darling, I’ll never take it off.” He presses a kiss into her palm. “I wish I had something to give you.”

“I have your promise to come back,” she says. “That’s all I want.”

She tries, and fails, not to devour him with her eyes as he goes. She doesn’t even try not to think, _I may never see him again._

***

She plays and sings for the Queen that evening, the new song she’d practiced when Geoffrey came to say goodbye. New to her, that is; Master Byrd has long been one of Elizabeth’s favorite musicians. Spanish songs will not sit well with a country at war; she knows enough of politics to know this without being told. The Queen smiles to hear the fulsome words of praise: _O beauteous Queen of second Troy_ and all that. She likes flattery. It was a shock to Maria to realize that a woman could be seen to like flattery and flirtation and lavish gifts and still be honored as a queen. But then, Elizabeth has been a shock to all Maria’s understanding of a woman’s world. _You have your song, and I have my scepter,_ she had said, gently enough to give no offense and firmly enough to make it clear that she regretted nothing.

“You’ve not played that before,” she says now, with the last notes fading from the air.

“I learned it today,” Maria answers, “in hopes that it would please Your Majesty.”

She has been at court long enough to know the difference between the Queen’s real smile and her courtier’s one. She gets the full weight of the real one now, brief but intense. “You cannot fail to please, my dear. But I confess I like to hear your sweet voice sing English rather more than Spanish. I shall send you to Master Byrd to learn some of his newest songs.”

“You honor me, Your Majesty.” And she does, beyond Maria’s expectations. The Queen flirts with all the dashing young men at court; their purpose is to flirt back, as outrageously as they can manage. Some do it with flair that turns it into a game, like Sir Walter and his odd accent; some do it as a chore, and they do not last long. Some, like Geoffrey, do it sincerely, using the overblown words as a thin veil over genuine admiration. Those are the ones who last longest at court, and whom the Queen most hates to part with. She had not expected to remain a royal favorite once Elizabeth knew how she felt about Geoffrey; that she has is, she thinks, testimony both to Elizabeth’s fondness for her daring pirate and to Maria’s own careful efforts to please her. She has not flaunted her love, she has not flown the flag of her beauty in the Queen’s face. Elizabeth values tact even more than jewels, though she would never admit it.

Lady Cary takes up the lute next. She is past her best singing days, but her fingers are still nimble enough to pluck out a sprightly air that Maria remembers dancing to a few weeks ago. A ship from Spain had come that morning, carrying a letter from her uncle along with several dispatches heavy with wax seals. The petty lordling who’d brought the dispatches had sought her out and flattered her outrageously, just to have someone else to speak Spanish with at the English court. Geoffrey had not been at sea then; he’d tried not to glower at Don Fernando, but hadn’t quite managed it. She had helped her countryman through the rapid tune Lady Cary is playing now, and then contrived to let Geoffrey lead her out for a slower pavane, to give him an excuse to hold her hand. Don Fernando had been smitten enough to write to her, afterward, sending his letter on a trading vessel.

She thinks about that evening, and about the letter, as she sits with the Queen and does blackwork on a fine piece of linen. She would not trade places with Elizabeth; she is no more suited to a throne than the Queen is to a world bounded by love and needlework. But surely this is not all she can expect from her life? She is young and pretty; so often she has seen men dismiss youth and beauty as markers of foolishness. Could not one use an assumed foolishness as the Queen uses her temper, to mask true intentions and get what one wants without leaving the giver any the wiser?

She is a nobleman’s daughter, she has lived all her life with her desires at her fingertips for the asking. She is not used to asking for something more than once, or to looking three or four times at something to see what is truly there. But wouldn’t it be good to learn? She knows something of the Queen’s early trials; she forces herself to admit that, had the Queen approached them as she herself approaches life, Elizabeth might not now be alive, let alone queen. _Deceit_ is an ugly word; very well, call it _cleverness_ instead. A woman’s cleverness can arm her even when she carries no weapon. Perhaps it can even shelter the people she loves.

She takes out Don Fernando’s letter when the Queen dismisses her women for the night. By the light of a candle, she reads it over, looking for the hint she believes is there. “Maria, what on earth are you doing?” Martha asks, yawning hugely behind her hand.

“Go to sleep,” she says, flapping a hand in dismissal.

“Reading your love letters again?” says Martha knowingly.

“No!” she retorts, surprised by how important this feels to make clear. “I can’t explain it. There may be nothing to explain. Just go to bed and don’t wait up for me.”

Martha retreats. Maria will have to apologize in the morning; she shouldn’t have sharpened her tongue on faithful Martha. She tells herself that if she can find something within fifteen minutes, she will indeed reread one of Geoffrey’s letters before she goes to bed herself. He writes much more eloquently than he talks, but his letters cannot smile.

And there. There it is, written down in a thoughtless lordling’s elegant Italian script, sent to a countrywoman in a foreign land because she seemed young and pretty and not especially bright. _After my lord of Parma’s success, I hope shortly to see you again soon._ The Duke of Parma is not a naval man; he commands the Spanish army in Flanders, she knows that, she _knows_ it. Which means that whenever the Armada does set sail, it will not come to England first. They must land in the Netherlands to embark an invasion force, and to do that they must pass through the Channel, and to catch them the English fleet must follow out from Plymouth or leave the entire eastern coast of the island unprotected.

Cecil and Walsingham keep the Queen much better informed than she could hope to do. But just on the chance that this makes a difference, she knows what she must do in the morning.

She does, indeed, pull out her favorite of Geoffrey’s letters to read in her candle’s last light. She is tracing with her fingers the carefully formed lines of her name in his hand when the flame goes out.

***

The letter crackles faintly in the Queen’s hands as she reads it. Behind her, William Cecil’s bearded face is a careful blank; Sir Francis does not bother to hide his hard smirk. Maria watches the Queen: tight-lipped, thin arching brows drawn together, motionless in her chair. “How long have you had this letter?” she asks at last, looking up from the page.

“A week,” Maria answers.

“And you bring it to Her Majesty now.” Cecil’s cool voice is deliberately stripped of all implication, which makes it easier to read into it any implication one chooses.

Her best and truest defense is the truth. “I did not realize what it contained until last night.”

“Yet you encouraged correspondence with this Don Fernando.”

Elizabeth waves a hand irritably through the air. “Oh, let her be, Burghley. You were sick that night; the boy scarcely let her breathe unaccompanied.”

“This is not entirely surprising news,” says Walsingham. Unlike Cecil, he adorns his speech with suggestions. Listen to him for too long, and you could start to see conspiracy behind every door. “But it is the first corroboration of the Flanders plan that I have not had to ferret out. He _volunteered_ it, Your Majesty, without any prodding to point him in the direction of a lie.”

“And if not?” Elizabeth demands. “If the fleet leaves Plymouth and the southern coast is defenseless against an attack?”

“From what army?” says Walsingham. “We know the composition of the Armada; we know the commanders. They have not embarked an invasion force of the strength they would need to conquer us. Their land army is in Flanders with Parma. I believe Doña Maria is correct.”

“It would do no harm, Majesty, to send a message to Lord Howard at Plymouth,” says Cecil. Maria swallows down her surprise at this unexpected support. “Let him choose to act on it or not, as he sees fit. And perhaps Doña Maria can find other ways to help reinforce this information.”

“Your uncle, Don Alvarez, still writes to you?” Walsingham, pouncing on the mouse.

She is not a mouse. She lifts her head. “Unfortunately, my uncle knows very well where my sympathies now lie. He would not make Don Fernando’s mistake.”

That’s startled both Her Majesty’s unflappable ministers. Walsingham’s eyes widen; Cecil hides a smile in his beard. The Queen laughs, and holds out a hand to Maria. “You see, gentlemen? Piracy has its uses, even in statecraft.” Her grip tightens on Maria’s hand; she is the shield now, placing herself between Maria and suspicion. “But surely there are other lords of the Spanish court who are not as astute as your esteemed uncle, my dear.”

She knows what is being asked of her, what she in a sense volunteered for when she brought the Queen that letter. _Your position here may become very difficult,_ her uncle had warned her when he left; this, no doubt, is some of what he meant. But even he, who had known her since birth, had still seen her as young and pretty and foolish when he said it. He had thought that she could spend a year in Elizabeth’s court and not come to see a different way to be a woman; he had thought that she could set love and ambition and newly-woken ideals at a lower rate than the habit of familiarity. Perhaps she could have, once, before Geoffrey and the Queen. She would like to think not, even without them.

She permits herself a smile. It is nowhere near as knowing as the Queen’s, as subtle as Cecil’s, or as sly as Walsingham’s. But it is her own, and that is worth something. “I’m sure the lords of the Escorial will be only too glad to take pity on a countrywoman in sad exile,” she says.

Elizabeth’s face widens in a grin. “Poor Captain Thorpe. Does he know yet that he’s met his match?”

“He will soon, Your Grace,” she hears herself say, lightheaded with relief, and is rewarded with a great shout of royal laughter.

***

She writes to Don Fernando again, a letter full of sympathy and badly coded encouragement: the sort of letter a silly young girl would write on the eve of war. Walsingham offers a few suggestions, which she takes; Cecil actually snorts into his beard when he reads the final draft. In the third week of May, a final ship leaves for the Netherlands, bearing her letter and the Queen’s orders to make one last effort at diplomacy. It will come to nothing; everyone knows this. Maria admires that the Queen still wishes the attempt to be made.

She learns some of Master Byrd’s new songs. They are deliberately light and cheerful, as if the composer wishes to calm the Queen’s troubled mind with music alone. It is true that she is snappish and on edge these days; Maria reminds herself to take no offense if she feels the lash of Elizabeth’s tongue. She has tried for years to avert a war all believed inevitable; she is unused to being outmaneuvered. No one reacts well to losing what they want, whether prince or subject; she understands this, even if she is new to the game of nations. She finds other ways to help when music fails. The Queen always appreciates a good translation of some worthy text, or a new embroidered cover for her prayer book. Once she lifts an eyebrow in response to something Mary Radcliffe says, and is surprised by Elizabeth’s laughter: “My dear, that is Burghley to the life!” she cries, and her monkey claps its little hands. She studies faces around her and learns to mimic them. This, too, is part of a spy’s training.

The Armada is sighted from England on July 19; the court knows of it by evening. Maria remembers a time when she would have fainted in fear at the danger, to herself and to those she loves. She does not faint now. She digs her nails into her palms and forces herself to remember poor Don Alonso, who loves his orange trees and hates the sea. “But Your Majesty!” she cries in mimicry, lowering the pitch of her voice. “How can I be your admiral? My stomach revolts if I so much as look at a ship’s deck!” The Queen’s ladies laugh, and the Queen lifts the edge of her fan to cover her face. Later that day, Lady Cary makes a point of telling her that Her Majesty smiles too rarely, and she hopes Maria will stay long at court. Lady Cary has outlived one husband already in the Queen’s service; Maria is proud to win her approval.

Walsingham visits her a few days later, when she is finishing her blackwork while Martha mends a rip in a sleeve. “Sir Francis!” sputters Martha, her hands opening to release brocade and satin into her lap.

He ignores her, sketching a bow toward Maria. “Word has come,” he says, “that the fleet has driven the Armada back toward Calais. Apparently they thought of waiting for a sign from Parma in the Solent. I hear that Sir Geoffrey Thorpe was most courageous in the fight to prevent this.”

So many emotions flood her at once: pride, relief, fear, excitement, even a touch of self-reproach. “He is well, I hope?” she asks, falling back on the only one she can voice aloud.

“Very well,” says Walsingham. “Sir Francis Drake commended him and his crew in the taking of a Spanish flagship. I thought you might like to know.”

Martha flutters happily around her when Walsingham leaves. Maria lets herself feel the uncomplicated joy of his safety. She had mentioned the Solent to Don Fernando, had described it in words borrowed from Walsingham as a safe little spot where English ships rarely came. Perhaps they would have tried to anchor there without her letter; perhaps she had been the reason they tried. She might never know. All she does know is that she did her best to trap men who think of her as one of their own, who speak the same language she grew up speaking, for whose success she would be praying now if she had never come with her uncle to England. Easier by far to think that the differences between a Spanish lady and an English captain don’t matter when those countries are not yet at war; easier to believe the differences irrelevant when your own allegiances are not the ones that have shifted. Perhaps someday, Martha’s suggestion that England could learn from Spain will be taken. Perhaps she will even live to see it. That might ease the tight little knot of her own betrayal that she feels under her ribs.

And then again, perhaps that knot can melt away by itself in time. Geoffrey is still safe, the Queen is still safe, and she did all she could to make it so. Her relief and pride in that is as real as her sense of betrayal, and much more welcoming.

***

The Queen does not take her to Tilbury. “Not that I don’t want you there,” she says that evening, after dismissing the rest of her ladies. “You’re quite amusing when you want to be, my dear. I’d continue to cultivate that; it’ll stand you in good stead. You’re very new to this world, you see, and I’d rather not push you too far at once.”

She understands. It is another form that the Queen’s protection can take: keeping Maria away from her chosen countrymen preparing to kill those of her birth. She feels a little less alone, knowing that the Queen has taken the time to think of her. “Thank you, Your Grace,” she says.

“And when I come back, I’d like to hear some more of your Spanish songs,” Elizabeth adds. “I’ve found that I miss hearing you sing them.”

She feels as if a bird has taken flight underneath her heart. “Gladly,” she says, not bothering to hide her smile.

She translates her favorites from Spanish to English while the Queen is gone and the country holds its breath, waiting for a possible invasion. She keeps her head bent over her paper and ink, fills her mind with words and languages and rhymes, blocks out fear so it can’t paralyze her. She has made a neat little book by the time the Queen comes back, bearing the triumphant news that the Armada poses no threat of invasion to England any more. She sings two songs when the Queen asks for them, then offers the book to Elizabeth as if nothing has disturbed her sleep this last week.

“How lovely,” says the Queen. “It pleases me to be able to offer you a gift in return.”

The lift of the feather fan should have warned her, but she is watching the door as it opens, and then she can see nothing but Geoffrey’s face. Just in time, she remembers not to run to him, to let him pay his respects to the Queen first. For once she is struck as mute as he; he kisses her hand, she stares at him through a dazzle of tears, and neither one says a word.

“Goodness,” says the Queen. The fan is down now; not a hint of a smile can be seen, not unless you look closely into her eyes. “Maria, are you well? Sir Geoffrey, you’d best take her out to the balcony for some fresh air.”

She truly hadn’t been certain, not until now, that the Queen would consent to the loss of one of her favorites. But the fan goes up again as Maria rests her shaking hand on Geoffrey’s arm. He is warm and solid and _here,_ a little thinner and a good deal more tan and, most importantly, safe. She makes it four steps out onto the terrace before she throws her arms around him.

“Gently, love!” he says, wincing. “I’m not repaired just yet.”

Her eyes snap to his face, scanning for hurts she missed. “You’re wounded? Oh God, Geoffrey, they told me you were well. I’m going to hang Walsingham by his heels.”

It is so good to hear him laugh that she almost forgets her worry. “Nothing too serious,” he says. One hand comes up to cup her cheek. “Thanks to you, as it happens.” With his other hand, he pushes back his short side-slung cloak. Her rose and iris pin glitters below his shoulder. There is a crack in the rose, a gap cleaving the diamond blossom in half nearly to the golden stem. Two settings yawn empty of their gems like a mouth with missing teeth.

“We saw some heavy fighting at Gravelines,” Geoffrey says, as if this is as simple a thing as _good morning_ or _that promontory’s got a very interesting history._ “I had your pin right here when a sailor aimed his pistol at me.” He holds his hand open just over his heart, not quite touching. She doesn’t want to think about what bandaging he must have under his doublet. “He had good aim, I’ll give him that. The shot glanced off the pin. Still knocked me off my feet; I’d rather not think about what might have happened without it.”

She’s not sure if she even decided to sit down, only that she is sitting on a bench with Geoffrey beside her, _alive, thank God._ He has both her hands in his, and is staring at her without a hint of his usual hesitancy. “So you see,” he says, “my lady of the roses brought me home after all.”

She has time to think, quite clearly, _I am going to kiss him._ And then she does it, as easy as breathing, which is suddenly much harder to do with his arms around her and his mouth on hers. She remembers just in time not to cling as tight as she wants, for the sake of his wound, but he seems to have forgotten it; he pulls her even closer, only letting go to draw a breath as ragged as her own. She may never know if her letter had any effect on the battle, but she knows she saved his life: she, herself, without help. A shield to those she loves. That is something worth being proud of, even worth trusting in. That and the man in her arms, who tilts his head to one side and says with a sudden grin, “Darling, why would you hang Walsingham by the heels?”

No use pretending; he clearly already knows. And she doesn’t want to pretend with him. They’ve always had better luck with honesty. “Sir Francis needs to learn sometime how to treat his agents,” she says with all the hauteur at her command.

Geoffrey laughs, throwing back his head. “What a pair we make, sweetheart. The pirate and the spy.”

“At least we won’t be boring,” she says, and pulls him down for another kiss.


End file.
